I’ve split this off, since it looks like good material for a new topic.
Those dry sundry food stores have dried mushrooms, big black ones. I recommend soaking those in hot water and experimenting with them, as well as the fresh ones at the market. That’s what I do for mushroom dishes. I don’t even know what the ones I use are called. I’m not very knowledgeable about mushrooms, I’m afraid. Hopefully some other posters can step in and give you a better answer.
I use the plain white button mushrooms for mushroom soup, and the soup isn’t bad.
I use the big dark brown dried mushrooms as porcini substitutes. Not nearly as intense, so you need to use more, but the texture and flavour is good nevertheless.
Divea, after using the dried ones, or even the big brown fresh ones, I’ve pretty much given up using button mushrooms altogether.
You need to soak the dried ones in very hot water for about 20 minutes or half and hour before using, and you keep the soaking water to add to whatever you’re making.
It also pays to spend as much as you can afford on them, as they come in a wide price range. You get what you pay for.
[quote=“sandman”]I use the big dark brown dried mushrooms as porcini substitutes. Not nearly as intense, so you need to use more, but the texture and flavour is good nevertheless.
Divea, after using the dried ones, or even the big brown fresh ones, I’ve pretty much given up using button mushrooms altogether.
You need to soak the dried ones in very hot water for about 20 minutes or half and hour before using, and you keep the soaking water to add to whatever you’re making.
It also pays to spend as much as you can afford on them, as they come in a wide price range. You get what you pay for.[/quote]
Thing is there are SOOO many dried ones…are you talking about the biigie ones, that look warty??? 
I really dunno much about this stuff, I read a recipe, go buy mushrooms, perfect the recipe and that’s that!
All I can help with:
Enoki mushrooms = the long thin bunched up ones, common in hot pot and between teeth after hot pot = 金針菇 / jīnzhēngū.
The common biggish brown ones = shiitake mushrooms = 香菇, xiānggū (I THINK these are shiitakes).
“Mushroom” = 蘑菇, mógu. I’m not sure how generic a term this is.
“Tree ear”, “edible tree fungus” = 木耳, mù’ěr. Common here but not something I’ve yet found a good reason to use.
Western cookbooks often have you removing the stems from shiitakes, although this amuses my wife and mother-in-law.
Portobellos aren’t available here, are they? My wife’s getting more and more vegetarian, and I’ve got a few promising recipes built around portobellos.
CirySuper stocks little containers of dried Porcini, Chantrelle and a couple of other kinds. Not super cheap, but then again, for sauce you don’t usually need tons of it, soup could be a different matter though.
Shittake are the ones I use. And I don’t usually use the stalks in the actual dish but keep them aside, as you can make a very good rich vegetable stock with them. Or if you’re like me, you can shamelessly steal Belgian Pie’s idea and make a really lovely mushroom pate. 
Some of the dried ones we have look like they’re kind of crazy paved on the tops. They’re still shiitake, but they tend to be a lot more expensive, so maybe they’re better quality.
But you should try using fresh shiitake for a normal mushroom soup sometime. Just use the caps. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Fresh
Regular dried ones – inexpensive and quite good
These are the ones that can be a lot more expensive, but they’re usually VERY good.
Thanks. now whats a darned pate? Never mind, i just make soup and curry…
Some different mushrooms available in grocery stores:
Button mushroom/crimini/portobello (Agaricus bisporus) 洋菇 (English name varies by maturity)
Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) 香菇
Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) 平菇
King trumpet mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) 杏鮑菇
Straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) 草菇
Wood ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) 木耳
Enoki (Flammulina velutipes) 金針菇
Snow ear (Tremella fuciformis) 雪耳
Oyster mushrooms are nice, but only when cooked in tons of butter or they get a really weird flavour… or am I doing something wrong when I cook them?
For a long time I thought that the French word for “mushroom” was “moucheron”. I learned to my chagrin that “moucheron” means “gnat”, and the proper word for “mushroom” is “champignon”. 
:roflmao: That is so cute…